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John Kerry Plans to Give a Speech

by HarrisBenefield Posted on December 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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In the aftermath of the UN vote condemning Israeli settlements on the West Bank, John Kerry plans to give a speech today:

In a last-chance effort to shape the outlines of a Middle East peace deal, Secretary of State John Kerry is to outline in a speech on Wednesday the Obama administration’s vision of a final Israeli-Palestinian accord based on bitter lessons learned from an effort that collapsed in 2014.

….Mr. Kerry, the official said, has long wanted to give a speech outlining an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal but was held back by White House officials, who saw it as unnecessary pressure on Israel that would anger Mr. Netanyahu. But that objection was lifted last week as Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry agreed the time had come to abstain on the United Nations resolution.

I don’t really understand the motivation at work here. This has nothing to do with my skepticism about the peace process in general, but with the pointlessness of the speech itself. It’s sort of like writing a piece of fanfic, where you get to demonstrate to your circle of friends how cleverly you’d tie up all the questions and loose ends in the original work. Except it’s not even fanfic: it’s more like an outline for a piece of fanfic, and without the opportunity to even display any cleverness.

Both Israel and the Palestinians are keenly aware of every issue separating them. Their inability to make a deal has nothing to do with the lack of a clever-enough plan. They just don’t agree with each other and they don’t trust each other. Actual negotiations, in which Kerry applied pressure to compromise and helped to build trust, were perfectly defensible even if I personally think there was never any chance of success. But a speech outlining a plan? Why bother?

I dunno. With everything in tatters and only three weeks left in the Obama administration, maybe Kerry feels like he can rip off the diplo-mask and give a truly bracing speech of the kind that no American has ever dared to give. I suppose that could have a modest effect. But what are the odds he has that in mind?

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John Kerry Plans to Give a Speech

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The AMA Represents Only About One-Sixth of All Doctors

by SonjaNewrnd Posted on December 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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How do doctors feel about the nomination of Rep. Tom Price as Secretary of Health and Human Services? The New York Times weighs in:

When President-elect Donald J. Trump chose Representative Tom Price of Georgia to be his health and human services secretary, the American Medical Association swiftly endorsed the selection of one of its own, an orthopedic surgeon who has championed the role of physicians throughout his legislative career.

Then the larger world of doctors and nurses weighed in on the beliefs and record of Mr. Price, a suburban Atlanta Republican — and the split among caregivers, especially doctors, quickly grew sharp. “The A.M.A. does not speak for us,” says a petition signed by more than 5,000 doctors.

A faithful reader emails to ask: “I remember reading recently that a shockingly low number of doctors are members of the AMA. So what is it exactly?”

Membership numbers, it turns out, are not a secret, exactly, but neither does the AMA go out of its way to make them easy to find. Their current membership is about 235,000, but you have to adjust this number to remove students, retired doctors, and so forth. Based on publicly available data, and guesstimating that about one-fifth of its members aren’t practicing physicians, here’s what the AMA’s membership looks like. They were indeed a powerhouse in the 50s, but no so much anymore:

Keep this in mind whenever you hear that “the AMA” endorses a political position—regardless of whether it’s one you approve of or not. They represent only about a sixth of all the physicians in the country. The rest may have very different opinions indeed.

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The AMA Represents Only About One-Sixth of All Doctors

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Kansas Governor Sam Brownback Wants to Wreck the US Economy Too

by HaiHeckel2 Posted on December 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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Oh man:

Sam Brownback, the Kansas governor whose tax cuts brought him political turmoil, recurring budget holes and sparse evidence of economic success, has a message for President-elect Donald Trump: Do what I did.

….“My critics, which are many, they only want to look at the budget,” Mr. Brownback said in an interview. “They won’t look with any depth or detail at the impact on small-business growth or private-sector job growth. That’s the target, that’s what we’re after.”

….Mr. Brownback said a number of states face budget problems and said Kansas has “never had more private-sector jobs.”

It’s technically true that Kansas has “never had more private-sector jobs.” What that really means, however, is that despite five years of population growth and economic expansion under Sam Brownback, Kansas has only barely passed its previous peak from 2008—while the rest of the country passed that mark long ago. The chart on the right shows total Kansas private-sector employment vs. US private-sector employment starting in January 2011, when Brownback took office. His tax-cutting policies didn’t work from the start, and the longer he’s stayed in office the worse they’ve done. Kansas is the poster child for the failure of betting on tax cuts for the rich to supercharge the economy.

If you want a more sophisticated analysis that takes into account all the excuses people will toss at you (drought, airplane manufacturing, etc. etc.), check out Menzie Chinn. His latest is here, and you can search Econbrowser for all the gory details you want. Spoiler alert: None of them change the picture on the right.

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Kansas Governor Sam Brownback Wants to Wreck the US Economy Too

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Here Is Rex Tillerson’s Awesome Record at ExxonMobil

by JoleneBolick73 Posted on December 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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Was Rex Tillerson a good CEO at Exxon? Over at Bloomberg, Vincent Piazza says Tillerson has two big claims to fame:

Number one, it’s the relationship with Russia and the expanding relationship there as well. But also the recent acquisition of XTO back in 2010. That was a major bet on natural gas that did not pan out—a $35 billion bet on natural gas that seemed to turn the other way on them.

So…a lousy acquisition and, um, Russia. The Wall Street Journal goes into more detail on that:

“I have a very close relationship with Mr. Putin,” Mr. Tillerson told students at the University of Texas, his alma mater, in February….He was successful, in part because he negotiated with Mr. Putin, who became Russian prime minister in 1999 and has run the country, either as president or prime minister, ever since. Mr. Tillerson’s ties helped him catapult past other executives to lead the company in 2006.

….At a June 2012 meeting with Mr. Putin, Mr. Tillerson said Exxon’s Arctic deal enhanced U.S.-Russian ties. “I agree, as you point out, that nothing strengthens relationships between countries better than business enterprise,” a Kremlin transcript quoted him as saying. The next year, Mr. Putin awarded him Russia’s Order of Friendship for his work.

Well, OK then. He’s chummy with Vladimir Putin and he blew $35 billion on a bad acquisition. But at least he’s a great businessman, right? Here is ExxonMobil’s performance over the past decade:

But at least they paid dividends regularly! Sounds like Secretary of State material to me.

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Here Is Rex Tillerson’s Awesome Record at ExxonMobil

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Quote of the Day: There’s No Such Thing as Facts Anymore

by HuldaRivett Posted on December 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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One of the problems with Donald Trump’s habit of lying endlessly—aside from the fact that he does it in the first place—is that it affects everyone around him. By chance, today brought this all front and center. We start off with Trump himself:

This is a routine, garden-variety Trump lie. He obviously knows it’s untrue, but he doesn’t care. You see, for him it represents some kind of higher truth. Trump lackey Scottie Nell Hughes, in the course of explaining a different Trump lie, tells us how this works on the Diane Rehm show this morning:

People that say facts are facts, they’re not really facts….There’s no such thing, unfortunately anymore, as facts. And so Mr. Trump’s tweet, amongst a certain crowd, a large part of the population, are truth. When he says that millions of people illegally voted, he has some facts amongst him and his supporters, and people believe they have facts to back that up. Those that do not like Mr. Trump, they say that those are lies and there’s no facts to back it up.

Got that? These things the rest of us call lies are facts amongst him and his supporters. Senior lackey Kellyanne Conway agrees that truth in Trumpworld is a relative thing, but defends it more directly. If Trump says it, then by definition there must be something to it:

Finally, Corey Lewandowski tells us all to just get the hell over it:

This is the problem with the media. You guys took everything that Donald Trump said so literally. The American people didn’t. They understood it. They understood that sometimes — when you have a conversation with people, whether it’s around the dinner table or at a bar — you’re going to say things, and sometimes you don’t have all the facts to back it up.

Apparently we’ve got four years of this behavior ahead of us. Trump’s “facts” aren’t meant to be facts. They just represent a state of mind, or perhaps an aspiration of some kind. His supporters all get this. Now we’d all better get it too.

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Quote of the Day: There’s No Such Thing as Facts Anymore

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Jared Kushner Is the Power Behind the Throne

by DelorisBourassa Posted on November 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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The New York Times tells us about Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner:

Whatever role Mr. Kushner may play in the administration, he has already had a hand in helping assemble it. Both of Mr. Trump’s most senior advisers, Mr. Priebus, his new chief of staff, and Stephen K. Bannon, his chief strategist, seek Mr. Kushner’s advice routinely, considering his buy-in almost a prerequisite for their proposals to Mr. Trump….“Jared has the trust, confidence and ear of the entire inner circle of the Trump administration, including the most important member of that group, the president-elect,” said Matthew Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

….Though he is not particularly bookish, Mr. Kushner is an admirer of “The Count of Monte Cristo,” the story of an innocent man seeking vengeance against people who have wronged him. It is a story that feels particularly resonant now: In recent weeks, Mr. Kushner has been able to exact a measure of revenge against his own family’s nemesis, Governor Christie.

The Count of Monte Cristo! Could there be a more perfect book for Trump’s extended family? But Kushner better watch out:

Trump gets angry when members of his inner circle get too much of the spotlight, as Rudolph W. Giuliani did when headlines about his millions of dollars in speaking fees appeared as the former New York mayor was publicly promoting himself to be Mr. Trump’s secretary of state.

Apparently Giuliani is now on the outs. Kushner might be too if more profiles like this start appearing.

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Jared Kushner Is the Power Behind the Throne

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No, Trump Didn’t Do Best in “Rapidly Diversifying” Counties

by KingDktnvhfsc Posted on November 1, 2016

Mother Jones

The Wall Street Journal reports that Donald Trump is doing especially well in places where white majorities are dwindling:

Small towns in the Midwest have diversified more quickly than almost any part of the U.S. since the start of an immigration wave at the beginning of this century. The resulting cultural changes appear to be moving the political needle.

That shift helps explain the emergence of Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump as a political force, and signals that tensions over immigration will likely outlive his candidacy….Mr. Trump won about 71% of sizable counties nationwide during the Republican presidential primaries. He took 73% of those where diversity at least doubled since 2000, and 80% of those where the diversity index rose at least 150%, the Journal’s analysis found.

Hmmm. I’m no political scientist, but I play one on the internet—and 71 percent vs. 73 percent sure doesn’t sound like a very substantial effect to me. Trump’s 80 percent win rate in counties where diversity rose by 150 percent is slightly more impressive, but the sample size is pretty low. Here’s the diversity map:

The Journal identifies a “distinct cluster of Midwestern states—Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota” that saw the fastest influx of nonwhite residents. So let’s take a look at who those states supported in the Republican primaries:

That sure doesn’t look like a region where Trump kicked any special ass. In fact, aside from his home territory in the mid-Atlantic states, he did best in the South, which has seen virtually no change in diversity according to the Journal’s map. White folks there have been living among nonwhites for a long time, and they were completely in love with Trump.

I wonder what accounts for that? Economic anxiety, perhaps?

Unemployment is actually lower in rapidly diversifying counties than in the country on the whole, a sign that concerns over lost jobs are weighing less on voters in these areas….Craig Williams, chairman of the Carroll County Republican Party, said it is the lawlessness of illegal immigration that bothers residents. “People talk about immigration as if we’re a bunch of racists,” he said. “Do we have laws, or do we not have laws? If we’re just going to ignore them, then what’s the point?”

It’s a chin scratcher, all right. I guess we’ll never know.

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No, Trump Didn’t Do Best in “Rapidly Diversifying” Counties

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Brand New Mexican/Illuminati Conspiracy Theory Ready for Public Release

by LeviApj3993 Posted on October 14, 2016

Mother Jones

Just when you think that things can’t get weirder, they get weirder. But don’t I say that every day? Lately, yes I do. Nonetheless, Donald Trump and his brain trust are truly getting even weirder:

Donald Trump will broaden his attack against the media to hit globalism and the Clinton Foundation by charging that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is part of a biased coalition working in collusion with the Clinton campaign and its supporters to generate news reports of decades-old allegations from several women.

….As early as Friday, Mr. Trump is planning to claim that Mr. Slim, as a shareholder of New York Times Co. and donor to the Clinton Foundation, has an interest in helping Hillary Clinton’s campaign, according to a Trump adviser. Attacking the Mexican billionaire would allow Mr. Trump to hit several targets. He could slam the “failing” New York Times, which he says had to be “rescued” by a “foreigner”—Mr. Slim, the adviser said.

Here’s what’s great. There’s hardly one American in a hundred who’s ever heard of Carlos Slim. This makes him a great candidate for a master conspirator, of course, since he’s basically a blank slate. And Mexican too! So Trump can pretty much say anything he wants.

But here’s what’s really worth waiting for: watching all the paid shills on CNN—Scottie, Jeffrey, Katrina, etc.—suddenly start spouting mountains of dirt on Slim. The anchors will all carefully let them have their say, and Trump fans will be listening. Then the Washington Post (or someone) will go out to do yet another “What Trump Supporters Really Think” thumbsucker, and they’ll come back with lots of angry white folks swearing that Carlos Slim runs the Illuminati and the Trilateral Commission.

Jesus. What an election.

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Brand New Mexican/Illuminati Conspiracy Theory Ready for Public Release

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Bombshell New York Times Report Reveals Details From Donald Trump’s 1995 Tax Records

by JoleenRayner Posted on October 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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The New York Times dropped a bombshell of an investigation Saturday night when it published fragments from Donald Trump’s 1995 tax return.

Tax experts hired by the Times said that the $916 million dollars in operating losses listed by Trump in the 1995 document may have allowed him to avoid paying federal taxes over a possible 18-year period.

A lawyer for Donald Trump threatened the Times with “prompt initiation of appropriate legal action,” declaring the publication of the GOP nominee’s records illegal. Trump’s campaign itself responded to the report by issuing a statement that read, in part: “Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”

More detail here:

The $916 million loss certainly could have eliminated any federal income taxes Mr. Trump otherwise would have owed on the $50,000 to $100,000 he was paid for each episode of “The Apprentice,” or the roughly $45 million he was paid between 1995 and 2009 when he was chairman or chief executive of the publicly traded company he created to assume ownership of his troubled Atlantic City casinos. Ordinary investors in the new company, meanwhile, saw the value of their shares plunge to 17 cents from $35.50, while scores of contractors went unpaid for work on Mr. Trump’s casinos and casino bondholders received pennies on the dollar.

“He has a vast benefit from his destruction” in the early 1990s, said one of the experts, Joel Rosenfeld, an assistant professor at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate. Mr. Rosenfeld offered this description of what he would advise a client who came to him with a tax return like Mr. Trump’s: “Do you realize you can create $916 million in income without paying a nickel in taxes?”

The Times says the documents were mailed to one of its reporters. The envelope’s return address, according to the Times, claimed it was sent from Trump Tower. Each of the pages sent to the newspaper listed the names and social security numbers for Trump and his then-partner, Marla Maples. The Times then verified the documents with Jack Mitnick, who handled Trump’s tax returns at the time.

Trump has continually refused to release his tax returns, and the issue came up again during last Monday’s presidential debate. Trump regularly defends himself by saying that an IRS audit prevents him from releasing the records. (The IRS says Trump is free to make his documents public.)

Read the full report and see the original documents over at The New York Times.

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Bombshell New York Times Report Reveals Details From Donald Trump’s 1995 Tax Records

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Trump Adviser Claims Father of War Hero Is a "Muslim Brotherhood Agent"

by FilomenaWharton Posted on August 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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Roger Stone, an informal adviser to Donald Trump, took to Twitter on Sunday to claim that Khizr Khan, the father of a slain war hero who spoke at last week’s Democratic National Convention, is working for the Muslim Brotherhood.

The link that accompanied Stone’s tweet outlines a conspiracy theory that claims Khan is working to bring radical Muslims to the United States. The article Stone linked to also alleges that Khan’s son, Capt. Humayun Khan, was a Muslim martyr who was killed “before his Islamist mission was accomplished.”

Stone’s shocking tweets come just a day after Trump told ABC News that like the Khan family, he has made many sacrifices. The Republican nominee also attacked Khan’s wife, who stood alongside her husband during his DNC address, suggesting that perhaps she “wasn’t allowed” to speak because of the couple’s Muslim faith.

On Sunday, Trump’s vice presidential pick Mike Pence attempted to quell the mounting controversy by claiming Trump believed Khan’s family should be “cherished.” In the same Facebook post, however, Pence said that he supported Trump’s plan to suspend “immigration from countries that have been compromised by terrorism.”

After whipping up a storm of controversy on Sunday, Trump returned to knocking Khan on Monday morning.

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Trump Adviser Claims Father of War Hero Is a "Muslim Brotherhood Agent"

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